Category Archives: Pickups

Something different today at GAS, a pickup review! I must admit, like a lot of guitarists, I love pickups and tinkering with them to achieve ‘that sound‘.

PRS Dragon II Treble Humbucker Review Underside

Now today we’re checking out the PRS Dragon II Treble, which is fully made in the USA with ‘PRS USA‘ embossed underneath the pickup. This particular pickup has the chrome/nickel cover, you can also get them with a Gold plated cover.

Now I won’t waffle needlessly so I will get right into it, Firstly I tested this out on a Gold-top MIJ Orville Les Paul with a mahogany body, so a typically darker toned guitar which will of course color the tone coming through the pickup.

This pickup was in the bridge position for this review and the guitar was strung with the standard 10 – 46 gauge strings.

There is a video below that has Darren, our resident Guitar GAS guitarist showing the features of this PUP., make sure you check it out.

The Gibson BurstBucker No1 Humbucker Pickup, Model number: IM57A-NH; is the first in a series 3 replicas of Gibson’s original Patent Applied For (PAF) pickup models.

Gibson BurstBucker No1 Humbucker Pickup Review

Okay so it does have the brand Gibson on it, and it is made in the USA, so that has to count for something right?!!

Firstly, this review is based on the pickup being played in the neck position. l tested this pickup while it was in a MIJ Orville Les Paul, with the standard specs of mahogany body, maple top etc… There’s a video you can check out a bit further down this page…

I found this pup, in the neck position, had a darkish, very traditional Les Paul sounding tone. Gibson informs us that it is a ‘Vintage Tone” and because it is slightly under-wound, I would say that nails it very well. So straight up, this vintage replica PAF may rule the metal heads or super high gainers out!

Okay tone! Most other reviewers are divided half and half in their opinions on this model, but a lot of them were comparing it to higher end models, like Seymour Duncan’s Seth Lovers (which are a kickass pup).